Straight forward discrimination in Austria

I (and a few more other people) am fighting a desperate struggle with Austrian health authorities on the acceptance and treatment of CFS. They claim that either CFS does not exist at all, or that it is merely a psychiatric disorder.

Unlike in the US where doctors are more or less individual, independent specialists, the Austrian health system is ruled by a medieval chamber of medical doctors. This organization virtually dictates the rules of the game. There are no courts and no other authorities that you could turn to. And you will not find a single doctor that either knows CFS or would even dare to stand up against that chamber, as they could strip him of his right to practice.

So is there any authority in this world that is willing to make stand to the Austrian policy of discrimination?

I would like post a statement of the president of the Austrian chamber (Ärztekammer) that I received:
„CFS is well known to Austrian physicians, as it has been in continuous discussion for years.
Regrettably the nature of this disease has not been defined beyond a working hypothesis.
In the attachment we have added a link to the educational homepage of the AKH Wien (general hospital of Vienna).
As you can see there, it is still a mainly undefined illness, which definitely and in most cases requires psychiatric treatment.
The right procedure when CFS is suspected, is to rule out (repeatedly) any organic causes, and if that is the true (as in most cases), a psycho-therapy or psychiatric respectively is required.
There is continuous education on this topic and we will bring an article “state of the art” in the next edition of the Austrian physicians magazine (Ärztezeitung)..”

Link: http://akh-consilium.atldaten/neurosen htm

I guess it would be extremely helpful to get some comments or help from outside…

I do sympathise, here in the UK we are beleaguered by the powerful psychiatric lobby insisting that we have a 'hysteria' disorder'.Here's the WHO definition of myalgic encephalomyelitis, it has been classified as a neurological illness since 1969:

"WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (W.H.O.) DEFINITION OF M.E.
ME/CFS is an acquired organic, pathophysiological, multi-systemic illness that occurs in both sporadic and epidemic forms. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ICD 10 G93.3), which includes CFS, is classified as a neurological disease in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Chronic fatigue must not be confused with ME/CFS because the "fatigue" of ME/CFS represents pathophysiological exhaustion and is only one of many symptoms. Compelling research evidence of physiological and biochemical abnormalities identifies ME/CFS as a distinct, biological clinical disorder."

I don't know if Austria had signed to abide by the WHO definitions. My country has & it makes no difference, they even sneakily moved the definition into the psychiatric disorders pages in the UK WHO book, although the WHO told them that their neurological classification remains unchanged.

Could it be possible to ask some well known specialists to comment on this Austrian position? I mean that would not take a lot of time, but it could make a difference for thousands of people, as a few like me try to make their case against our health system.
Any suggestions which doctors would be open about that?

Hi Leitwolf, you described it perfectly and it's the same here in Germany.

"Unlike in the US where doctors are more or less individual, independent specialists, the Austrian health system is ruled by a medieval chamber of medical doctors. This organization virtually dictates the rules of the game. There are no courts and no other authorities that you could turn to."

A paper that really gave me some hope was a summary for the upcoming HHV-6/HHV-7 conference on June 22/23.

You can find it here:

http://www.hhv-6conference.com/pdfs/HHV6SatBroch08.pdf

If you need a good doctor visit Prof De Meirleir in Brussels (do a search on the board) as he is attending the conference too and is maybe the best CFS physician in Europe.

Why did this paper give me so much hope? Well not only because of the well known elite scientists from Harvard and Stanford and Japan who show there results there but also because of the first time that scientists from Germany attend the conference. The HHV-6 Foundation is one of the greatest foundations I know. I truly thank them for everything:

Borna virus and CFS
Liv Bode, PhD, Robert Koch Institute, Berlin, Germany
Dr. Bode, PhD, permanent scientist at the Robert Koch Institute
and lecturer in virology and infectious diseases at the Free
University of Berlin, has authored or co-authored over 45
papers on Borna virus (BDV) infection in both animals and
in human psychiatric disease including chronic fatigue. She
contributed to high-ranking priority publications on BDV target
cells in blood, isolation of human virus, and antiviral therapy
(amantadine), the latter shown to be effective both in vitro
against human and equine isolates, and in vivo in depressed
patients in open trials. Borna virus does not circulate in the
blood. Therefore, she and her associates developed sensitive
methods to detect the virus activity through circulating immune
complexes, antigenemia and free antibodies. Since the
diagnosis of Borna virus in humans is controversial, the findings
in human disease have been a matter of scientific and even
political debate, recently leading to Dr. Bode’s Whistleblower
award from the Association of German Scientists (VDW)l.
Studies in Japan and more recently, in China have demonstrated
higher levels of antibodies in patients with CFS than in controls,
supporting the suggestion by Bode and her associates that
Borna virus plays a role in human neurological disease.
__________________________________________________________

Dirk Lassner, PhD, of the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
A pathologist, Lassner will describe his group’s fascinating
finding that in over 1600 endomyocardial biopsies, the most
common virus found was parvovirus B-19, followed by HHV-6.
All of these cardiomyopathy patients have persistent fatigue. He
raises the question: could a subset of CFS patients in fact have
subclinical viral myocarditis?

I sympathize, as I have European relatives who are constantly telling me it's "all in my head"!

The following German website has a link to the Canadian Consensus Document on ME/CFS, translated into German:

http://www.cfs-aktuell.de/

The Consensus Document was composed by an *international* panel of physician and researchers. As it has been translated into German, I think it might be useful to you. The bibliography alone is priceless.

Perhaps you can send a copy to the Austrian authorities, as well as individual doctors.